Monday, October 10, 2011

Protesting Capitalism, One iPhone Delivered Tweet at a Time

The current liberal cause celebre is the "Occupy Wall Street" protest. This group of various leftist agitators and unwashed college activist-wannabes with no particular job or social life to distract them has camped out in New York. They're marching on the Brooklyn Bridge and trying to come up with slogans that rhyme with '99 percent'. Meanwhile, the media, always ready to sensationalize a story, is all too happy to give this small group endless exposure.

Now the far left is trying to spread the drum circles to other cities, from Cincinnati to Chicago, DC to LA. They even had a small gathering of hippies outside the Statehouse in Columbus today (Some friendly advice: if planning to protest government, pick a day that isn't a state holiday.)

There's nothing unique about the rhetoric coming from these people; it's the same stale liberalism of the past 50 years reheated for 2011. What makes these protests so utterly laughable is that members ofthe most consumerist generation ever are protesting capitalism.

As a member of the under-30 crowd, I (and my low bank balance) can attest to the fact that what my generation does best is spend. Most of us don't have families to provide for yet, aren't thinking about saving for retirement, hold significant disposable income (from either work or our parents) and are obsessed with status symbols. It's why corporations make and advertise so many products geared toward the tastes of younger people.

In turn, younger people buy like there's no tomorrow. The same people camping out near Wall Street to condemn corporate profits will be among the first in line for the latest iPhone, Call of Duty Black Ops: Resurrection (now available on PS3!), or a new PowerShot digital camera. Don't misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with people spending their money as they see fit, but for those same people to then complain about the success of these same corporations is the height of ignorance.

Just take a quick look at the Occupy DC website. Bold revolutionaries for change to fight corporations, and you can connect with them through Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., and my personal favorite, Google Groups (brought to you by Google Inc.). Then there's the revolving 7 photos on the page. There you can see these crusaders against capitalism, and they're doing it with their corporation-made cell phones, cameras, bullhorns, and bicycles in tow.

It's an irony that seems to be lost on these clueless protesters. Take today's small Columbus event as an example. In that Statehouse protest group was a 24-year old named Bethany. This wannabe revolutionary's day job? She works for J.P. Morgan Chase. Complete with her "Mean Corporations Suck" sign she attempts to explain away this inconsistency by claiming to be fighting to change the company from within and that her ideas "will be the ones they keep as [she] move[s] up." Forgive me if I don't exactly see Bethany and her "Mean Corporations Suck" sign as future CEO material.

These 'Occupy ____' protests are nothing more than the whining of fringe left youth who feel they're entitled to everything they want without having to put in the time or work to achieve it. For all their self-declarations of being a serious, intellectually based movement, just remember that these

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